Telematics units within mobile vehicles provide subscribers with connectivity to a telematics service provider (TSP). The TSP provides the subscriber with an array of services ranging from emergency call handling and stolen vehicle recovery to diagnostics monitoring and turn-by-turn navigation. Telematics units are often provisioned and activated at a point of sale when a subscriber purchases a telematics-equipped vehicle. Upon activation, the telematics unit can be utilized to provide a subscriber with the telematics services.
In tandem with the development of telematics resources, the technology utilized to store, manage, and consume power in electrically-powered vehicles has been improving steadily as well. Electrically-powered vehicles (hereinafter electric vehicles) are now competitive with fuel-powered vehicles on many performance parameters, and typically surpass fuel-powered vehicles in measures of efficiency, environmental cleanliness, and operating noise levels.
With fuel-powered vehicles, fuel can be siphoned from one vehicle and transferred to a second vehicle if the second vehicle has run out of fuel. Similarly, battery charge from one electric vehicle may be discharged and transferred to a second electric vehicle which has run out of battery charge. However, just as the unauthorized siphoning off of gasoline is a problem for fuel-powered vehicles, the unauthorized discharge of the vehicle battery may be a problem with electric vehicles.
Thus, it is an object in part to provide a system and method to utilize a vehicle's telematics unit to prevent discharge of a vehicle battery without a user's consent. However, while this is an object underlying certain implementations of the invention, it will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to systems that solve the problems noted herein. Moreover, the inventors have created the above body of information for the convenience of the reader and expressly disclaim all of the foregoing as prior art; the foregoing is a discussion of problems discovered and/or appreciated by the inventors, and is not an attempt to review or catalog the prior art.